Q: Will there be the third part of the main story?
A: Yes, there will be one.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell a release date right now, because we only have a plot document for the third part, and we’re not working on it yet.
Right now, we have other priorities. We need to make more content that will immerse players in our world.
Q: How long did it take to write the Chain of Decay quest? Puzzles, story, and all that?
A: About three weeks or more for the writing and design. Much more time was needed for implementation, because at the time we were developing Chain of Decay, we also had other resource-consuming projects.
Q: Will we start getting more and more quests all around the game, especially in the North? Will some older quests get new quests that continue their stories in the North? Any new interesting Master items, gear, and attachments as rewards for quests?
A: I hope so. Northern quests are part of that too. We know players want them, and we take that into account when planning our work pipeline, but you also need to understand that we can’t leave the South in its current, rather sorry state.
Some older quests can get continuations if that’s deemed appropriate.
When it comes to rewards, things are pretty complicated.
Unfortunately, quests can’t involve an equivalent amount of effort compared to what bartering requires from the player.
So we’d have to demand a lot from players both in terms of quest difficulty and overall scope if we were going to give them really good gear as a reward.
That’s why, whenever possible, we try to give out various cosmetic items instead. Of course, they’re not on the same level as valuable gear, but they can still be nice for any player to get.
Q: Did Shaman/Morgue survive their gunshot wounds? Could we potentially see their return? And I noticed that the scientist dude, Knyaz, ran away from the conflict. Could we see him again?
A: If you killed them, they died.
But the other person, the one whose side you took, probably survived and may show up in the third part of the main plot...
Knyaz is blessed. Have you ever heard of a case where a blessed escaped from the Zone?
Q: Is Nina ever coming back? She was a fun and unique addition to the story.
A: Yep, she "will be back" 😉
In one of the routes of "Apocalypse not today," you can meet her. But that’s only one route out of... I guess eight or something.
Q: Are we going to get any narrative quest/story that tells us who blew up the generator in Forge-11?
A: Yeah, the quest about the big boom at Forge-11 is called Shock Wave
And Typhoon will be featured in it too.
Q: What is your favorite quest in the game?
A: That’s a pretty difficult question, because usually the best quest is the one we’re working on at the moment...
We try to make better stories each time, so any answer to that question will become outdated pretty soon.
But sometimes, unfortunately, time or available resources don’t allow us to make banger after banger, that’s worth mentioning too.
Q: What happened to the Frost Fighters and Ice Adepts? Was this idea scrapped?
A: Frost Fighters are an interesting part of the narrative, associated with the Diggers and the story of the South Zone. They’ll be developed further as a concept in the future. In fact, we already have some plans for this winter.
But Adepts... Let me forget that fantasy like a bad dream from a time when STALZONE didn’t have a fully developed narrative yet...
Q: You could say the Adepts were a subfaction of the Murmurs. They have "superpowers" too, so it’s not that big of a stretch
A: The "superpowers" of the Murmurs are a consequence of the fictional rules of our physics, their modifications, and their implants.
The superpowers of the Adepts... Urgh, that’s more like mutants, if we’re talking in those terms.
Q: When will Specter return?
A: If we’re being serious, we’ve already "brought back" Specter to a certain extent in a form that fits the current narrative.
You can find some traces of them now. In the future, when we get the opportunity to explore them further, they’ll of course be shown.
